The Best Year of My Life

Pre-post Note: I’ll be posting Roree’s 1 year video separately. The videos take the longest to make and I haven’t gotten around to making it yet. Oops! Also, this will be the last monthly update on The Pretty Pirate, from now on, I’ll do yearly updates. Of course, it is inevitable that you’ll hear about her on this blog throughout the year, but this is the very last of the monthly updates. *tear*

The one year mark held a flurry of heavy expectations for me.

At this point, Roree should be able to:

Walk

Nurse minimally

Fall asleep by herself

Sleep through the night

Sleeping in her own room

Eat three full meals a day with a few snacks in between

Say plenty of words

Eat strawberries, nuts and honey

Start drinking milk (other than mine)

Have quite a few teeth

Whenever Roree would wake up at night or nurse every couple of hours previously, I’d always shrug it off, blame it on teething or growth spurt or milestone and tell myself, “She’s only ___ months old, she’s still an infant.”

Now that she is a year, suddenly all those unrealistic expectations I’ve had are beginning to hover over my head. Maybe I’m not doing something right? Is she learning enough? Has she experienced enough? Did I nurse/hold/cuddle her too much?

Instinctually and intellectually I know that these are silly expectations and even sillier worries, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there.

Roree doesn’t walk yet, but she’s taken several steps on her own. She launches herself at me, JT, my parents and sisters with the sole purpose of grinning at us while we applaud her 4 or 5 steps, but she has no desire to walk on her own. She is perfectly content with crawling, cruising, climbing, standing and having us hold her hands while she walks for now.

She nurses anywhere between once every 2 – 6 hours, depending on how busy she is, whether I am around or not, if she needs comforting or if she is tired. She still nurses to sleep for most naps and nurses for almost an hour or more at night to fall asleep. She wakes anywhere from every 2 hours to every 4 per night to nurse. Her crib resides beside our bed, where she sleeps with the front panel down so that I can roll over and nurse her easily. Sometimes I just pull her into bed with me when my back is cramping and I’m sick of lying on my right side.

Her and I sit down for two meals a day together and one meal a day with JT (dinner)… occasionally grabbing snacks that we share through out the day. Sometimes she eats what I give her, sometimes she feeds it to the dogs. She has a sippy cup of water all day and at meals. Sometimes she drinks it, sometimes she spits it out and laughs.

Roree signs several words, a lot of them look the same (ball, more, milk, dog, eat, etc). She talks all day long while crawling and playing and climbing… I only understand about 10% of what she is babbling about, unless she is repeating a specific word over and over. Even then, it is only minimally coherent. Recently “Oh no” “dog” “ball” “mama” “dada” “meh (grandma)” “pop pop” “turtle” and “baby” have been her favorite words.

She’s tried different nut butters and has had strawberries in smoothies with no reactions. I, surprisingly, haven’t gotten around to giving her any honey yet, but I’m sure that will be fine, too.

I have yet to give her any other milk besides breastmilk, mostly because she still nurses fairly regularly, but also because I am so freaked out by cows milk and I haven’t really looked into what kind of milk (if any) I’ll be giving her if and when she needs it. I have a feeling she is going to be nursing for a long time… and I don’t mind.

Roree has 6 teeth. Two on the bottom that came in around 4 months and then 4 on top that popped all at once a couple months ago. She can eat almost any food by biting it with her front teeth and gumming it with her back gums. Sometimes I cut her food up for her, but most of the time I don’t as we did mostly baby led solids. The only mash she’s ever really had was homemade applesauce.

Am I worried? Hmm… not really… sometimes, maybe, but that comes with the job description. Am I proud of her? Absolutely.

To me, she is brilliant and strong, whether she walks or crawls. I’m happy that she is healthy and growing like a champ even if it is powered mostly by my milk and not so much solid food. Whether she sleeps 2 hours a night or 10, consecutively or staggered between epic nursing sessions… I’m just glad I get to wake up to her chubby cheeks and sweet, knowing smile.

This year has been incredible, life changing, challenging, exhausting, magical and heart-swelling. It has made me wish I had a time-controlling remote that would let me pause and repeat all those moments that made me wonder the possibility of being filled with so much gravity-defying love that I forget what it feels like to walk on solid ground.

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2 Responses

Worrying about your baby and your parenting skills is part of the job description. You are doing a fantastic job … I love seeing what wonderful parents my kids are. Much better than I ever hoped to be.

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heythere

Simplistically, AFILAW is a lifestyle blog created by me. Bri.
The more complex explanation is that AFILAW is me. It's a place where all the little eclectic and fickle pieces of me come together in one place.Find out more here.